Annual After Xmas trip

[BrdHntr]

Went with my son on our annual trip after Xmas
Our timing was great, with fresh snow upon our arrival (the commute was a bit dicey - tail end of that major storm)
A brief summary
- We hunted a mix of CREP, WIA, min maint, & private
- the bird population is very healthy from what we saw
- a lot more hunters than we normally see on this trip
- we did limit every day - it was very noisy both driving to, and then walking - most of the birds we saw flushed wild well ahead of us
- the first two days were ideal pheasant hunting conditions - the snow was soft and winds calm
- the last couple of days were hard on the dogs feet - melt then freeze
- only lost 1 bird late in our hunt - birds could run on the light crust & we’d break through- great retrieves and digging out some live birds that buried themselves in that thick cattail matte
- visited with some good friends - always a highlight
- amazing to see how the birds recovered from last years cattail burying storm, with some or a lot of ice -the week b4 Xmas - we saw it first hand last year -UGLY
- if the weather behaves the rest of this winter, and there’s a decent spring hatch, next season looks promising

 

[Miforester]

Nice report Brdhtr.

 

[BrdHntr]

Thx Miforester,

Forgot to mention about being careful on snow covered Min Maint roads; we backed into a spot to clean some birds, and dropped into a good sized rut filled with water.........needed 4WD to get out...........fortunately pretty easy......................we did avoid driving down quite a few prior to this episode.................Here's a few trip pics....................also the biggest spur I've seen on a bird

 

[jonnyB]

Went with my son on our annual trip after Xmas
Our timing was great, with fresh snow upon our arrival (the commute was a bit dicey - tail end of that major storm)
A brief summary
- We hunted a mix of CREP, WIA, min maint, & private
- the bird population is very healthy from what we saw
- a lot more hunters than we normally see on this trip
- we did limit every day - it was very noisy both driving to, and then walking - most of the birds we saw flushed wild well ahead of us
- the first two days were ideal pheasant hunting conditions - the snow was soft and winds calm
- the last couple of days were hard on the dogs feet - melt then freeze
- only lost 1 bird late in our hunt - birds could run on the light crust & we’d break through- great retrieves and digging out some live birds that buried themselves in that thick cattail matte
- visited with some good friends - always a highlight
- amazing to see how the birds recovered from last years cattail burying storm, with some or a lot of ice -the week b4 Xmas - we saw it first hand last year -UGLY
- if the weather behaves the rest of this winter, and there’s a decent spring hatch, next season looks promising

Good report, hunter; especially like the part - bird population healthy and limit every day! East or west river? thanks.

 

[benelli-banger]

Hunted some private land today, several hundred birds in a few sloughs…very hard to get near…but there are birds bunched up…and they’ve not been stressed at all yet…

 

[BrdHntr]

East River JB
Hammered a yote too….son was pushing a 3-400 yard stretch of cattails S to N with both dogs - & I was blocking N on E side with W wind- he came trotting out - never saw or scented me
As BB just said, lots of birds but tough to get close to - we always try to cut them off - they still
Find escape routes